Surprise
by Ivydoll
Summary: EdEdd. Stan Lee inadvertantly facilitates the greatest surprise of 2D's life. Ed is sneaky and romantic.


**(KAI)** I've been active on DA for a long time, but was never part of any clubs. Then, I joined Gravy and Biscuts (sic), an EdEdd group.  
And that is my excuse for why I wrote a few EdEdd shots instead of finishing WIM and Des.  
('Surprise' was written to Snow Patrol's _Set the Fire to the Third Bar_. Also contains another 'song ref.')

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**Surprise**

Edd breathed in, very slowly, and let himself be sunk against the paisley davenport. The brightness of Ed's eyes imprinted on him, and he tried to quell the rising sense of excitement with a stern-ness that he could not quite muster. The house went quiet as Ed disappeared; for a moment, Double-D looked around idly, wondering how he had ever dealt with the deathly stillness of a house with no heart. He toyed with a lock of hair; in reach, it's length had given him pause and given passersby yet more.

Certainly it was too long for a boy; especially one as straight-forward and scientific as this one.

But Ed liked it. And Ed kept the house alive, with his energy and exuberance and love of life. The blonde knew, with his head, that smiles could not shine, and eyes could not glitter, and words could not brush against his skin as a soft feather; but Ed didn't seem to be affected by that logical assertion.

He shone. He gleamed. He could communicate an endless kind of love with the barest pass of fingertips.

He had disappeared in to the kitchen.

Double-D could feel the current of his only person as if they were islands, sharing a channel in a salty sea. He shook his head and almost flushed; where were those romantic words when he wanted to say such things? He tried to keep his eyes busy, but they continued to fall to the kitchen archway; his mind circled.

Vocabulary- it really meant nothing. 'Love is a chemical imbalance,' correct? Of course not. But he couldn't find the right words to tell Ed his feelings on the matter.

'I love you' could fall easily enough- time had passed well, and he felt confident. Maybe it was easier to say if he didn't have to look into Ed's clear, grayish eyes, and maybe it was even easier to say if Ed started. But the words felt hollow compared to the feelings that thumped against his rib cage- made him light-headed.

'The chemicals between us,' he might try to say, holding Ed's freckled hand tightly, 'they...'

And nothing more.

Ed would smile, confused, and give him a consolation kiss, that made the blonde's head go fuzzy and his mind blank. His knees weak.

Ridiculous, romantic and overdone and how could it even happen in a real person's life? This isn't a movie.

But, how often did Ed catch him, with strong arms and a stronger bond?

He was in the kitchen. It was oddly quiet. Double-D almost wished he hadn't been left to his own thoughts. Please, let's play a game, let's watch a monster movie, of course I want to help you with your comic, I'd love to take a walk, no, I don't mind if you put your arm around me.

Ed was simple. Happy. Double-D was envious, confused.

I Love You, I Love You. You know I love you. But... I want you to feel it the way I do. I want you to know it the way I do. I want to overwhelm you, drown you, make you see only me, the same way I can't look anywhere but you.

The blonde sighed, folded his knees. Was he growing impatient? What had Ed said? 'I'll only be a minute.'

A minute? Edd felt like an eternity was passing in his run-around of lacking confidence. He knew, in his head, this was the problem. Resolved, he stood up, allowed for a small stretch and the satisfying spinal 'snap' that went with it, and shuffled across the dark carpeting. One of his socks, in fashion, has slipped under his knee, and was loose like a relaxation.

He didn't mind. It gave Ed something to fuss over. He rounded the kitchen, thinking Maybe Ed needs help, or possibly-

And he screamed.

It was a strangled sound between a shriek and a gasp and it came complete with a delightful, jerky show of limbs tensing and Edd falling against the counter-top in terror. His heart pounded mercilessly as the blood in his face did similarly.

"Surprise!" Ed repeated, throwing a few more grams of confetti.

"Ed!" the shorter, gasping for proper breath, hissed, "What on earth?!"

Histrionic. That was the word, right? Ed could never remember. But he wouldn't have it any other way. The flush of red in Edd's cheeks, and the stuttering attempt to quell a sudden onslaught of surprised adrenaline; the slack in his legs and his knees struggled to hold him up. Double-D was terrible with surprises. Just awful.

Awfully cute.

"Happy anni-ver-suh-ree!" Ed proclaimed, indicating the lightly dressed kitchen table, the blocked window, and the candles.

God, candles.

"Anni-?" Double-D's eyes were still wide- no longer with the agony of having been startled nearly witless, but with a sort of bewildered confusion. They had an anniversary date? He felt embarrassed. Would he have considered celebrating such a thing? Really? Double-D couldn't even remember the fashion in which they had stopped being 'best friends' and became 'together.'

It had happened so naturally, dream-like.

Wonderful.

But he couldn't for the life of him recall if there was an 'official' date. More horrifyingly, he wasn't entirely sure what day it was, regardless. Friday, sure, but what? At a loss, he only leaned against the counter and tried, as usual, to think of something to say.

"Here, you sit here. Sorry for scaring you, I just wanted it that way." Sincerely, Ed. He was so... _goofy_. Just deciding for no better reason than he could. The set-up was just this side of sloppy, with a tenderness that obscured the lack of symmetry with a sweetness that could melt hardened criminals.

Edd felt criminal. What _day_ was it? "It's lovely," he finally managed, accepting the seat on shaky legs. Ed's gentlemanly arm beneath his did nothing to abate that condition.

For a few minutes, they dined on peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, milk, and a tray of available cookies. No doubt, Sarah had helped with those. Or, a Jimmy-and-Sarah combo that meant the chocolate chips were baked with a love of their very own.

He smiled around a bite-full, letting the heady smell of kashmir surround him. Across the dinette, Ed's happy face, one with a hint of smug victory, reflected candlelight with an air of handsomeness that was beyond appropriate for a seventeen-year-old. Double-D flushed, and was rewarded in kind with Ed's own embarrassed, pinkened, features. "You got something on your mind."

Psychic. Edd smiled, "How did you trick me into coming in here so you could scare me?"

"You're im-pay-shi-ent," Ed grinned, as though it were the world's most obvious fact, taught in kindergartens across the nation. "It only took me a minute to get the food together- you know I can't cook like you can, Double-D."

That was true. Living alone for a childhood made that very, very true. Double-D smiled anyway; it was the kind of compliment that reminded him he _often_ cooked with the intention of eating with Ed's presence.

"I like this very much, Ed," he said honestly, "But... I feel terribly."

Ed's expression faltered beneath a lengthy brow; "I didn't... upset you... did I?"

As though his friendly displays of camaraderie could! "No, Ed, no!" Double-D reached across the table to make a grab at the bigger boy's hand, "I'm just embarrassed because I didn't know today was our anniversary. And I didn't know it would be special to you."

Ed smiled as though weight had been lifted off of him; he leaned in very quickly and passed his lips across Double-D's mouth. "I made it up," he confessed.

"E-Eh?" Edd's heart probably couldn't take much more.

"I... just wanted an excuse," Ed grinned in his lopsided way, looking at a loss. "I'm not sure when we got together. Sarah says we were a couple a long time before we were a couple."

Double-D was shocked, as usual, that such a statement made perfect sense to him. "Then... You just picked today... to eat like we usually do?"

It was almost funny, but Ed's sober expression belied it. "No, not like usual!"

He reached into his pocket hastily, without ceremony or warning. He shoved his hand, which may or may not have been shaking- one can never tell in candle light- and offered a trinket desperately. "This is for you!"

"God," Double-D swallowed, opening his hands to receive the surprise, though his throat was nearly closed with a peculiar kind of fear. Good fear.

The bracelet slipped on to his hand like an ounce of water from a gentle sky; it hit his palm, half cold and half warm, and glittering dully in the kashmir air. It was feminine as sin. There was no lying about it, and he wondered how much more damaging the whispering would be at school, now.

Because he was definitely wearing it. For the rest of his life.

Clutching it, he stood abruptly, and flung himself against Ed's shoulders; as though something bigger than the both of them has picked him up, and set him down in Ed's warm arms. He might have been saying something- might have been thanking him, begging him to accept that thanks, thanking, God, thanking- but it was all a murmur in the overwhelming feeling of Ed's cheek against his.

A ripple across a pond where the stones collect, and grow stronger, and stronger, and stronger.

What could he say to that?

Ed was definitely crying. Hot, wet tears slipped down his freckled cheeks, and Double-D's hands in his hair, where he could feel the bracelet dangling against his neck, made it worse. The other boy's touch against his face, or the cling across his shoulders, or the tight, desperate press of their bodies was far, far too much.

Young love... can be a lot like that.

"How did you even afford this?" Double-D pulled back, nearly sitting Ed's lap. Not noticing the tears, he was tugging the clasp around, and he would have succeeded perfectly fine by himself, but Ed moved in and did it for him.

"Um..." Ed seemed embarrassed, and hung his head on Double-D's shoulder. "Um..."

It was so hard to say. Harder even than trying to explain how Double-D made him feel. The bursting out in his chest, the obsessive want to touch him, or the overwhelming feeling of wholeness that swept through him whenever they were together. 'You're pretty,' he might say, weakly, not wanting Double-D to be insulted. 'Um... in a boy kind of way...'

And nothing more.

'I love you,' fell so easily, so wonderfully. But he wanted Double-D to know it _more_, as though somehow, it wasn't enough.

The bracelet winked between them, its single in-set diamond hanging on a white gold weave and catching the candles in suspense. "You know Zombie Stabbers?" he finally whispered, his heart in his throat. "It got picked up."

"Your... your comic? The one with..." Well. The one with zombie-stabbing. "You mean, it really...?"

"I got an advance, and," Ed gulped, "I'm officially a comic book writer. I'm gonna get to meet Stan Lee and everything."

"Oh, my God," Edd breathed. No comic aficionado, or B-movie guru, Double-D could still appreciate the fame of the ultimate comic book genius. He watched television, too, dammit. "You're... I'm so happy for you...!"

The words went punctuated by Double-D's hugging Ed's neck, sliding his fingers in pale red hair and hanging in the moment of Ed's arms back around him, tight, rejoicing.

Tears, laughter- for a little while, it was all the same as they held on. Double-D kissed him, over and over, until their lips were bruised and their eyes were closed, until the celebration moved to the living room in a flurry of blown-out candles and half-left dinner. In a peculiar dark, where the evening had caught up with the kitchen of Ed's design, they lay together, until the only thing between them was the hotness of breath and the chill of white-gold sliding across pale or freckled skin.

Right where they belonged.

Young love... can be a lot like that.

And this one had plenty of room to grow in.


End file.
